dont treat coco like soil??

[Guywithoutajeep]

Mine are in the mail, hopefully... I look forward to using them!

I'm gonna jack your mail! I can't wait to try them either. Have you seen the few Blumat videos on youtube? There's a couple showing how they work and there's one random video that an indoor grower made. If you skip through that one you can see the Blumats he used. The plants look really nice.

Efficiency comes to mind when I think of these. Unfortunately I'm not experienced enough to have a perfect hand water and am jumping off that ship. Also, I have a life and can't always be next to my plants at the exact moment the water schedule requires.

 

[NiteTiger]

Where's that damn thread that shows a hand water vs. drips vs. Blumats grow? If I remember correctly the Blumats kicked all ass.

I've heard some great thing about those Blumats, I'd really like a link to that grow if you find it. Those do require a constantly pressurized feed source, though, right? I noticed on the website they had it hooked to a hose.

As to the handwatering, I guess I just never had an issue with trying to figure it out. A few grows and the strain has taught me what I need to know.

 

[Hemphrey Bogart]

I just switched to coco from soil. Handwatering seems to aerate the coco pretty good. Drippers would just keep it moist, which is important, but I have to wonder if handwatering allows for more oxygen to get into more of the medium.

When handwatering from the top, the solution goes down into the medium and fresh air is pulled into the coco. You won't get that kind of action with blumats or drippers.

 

[Bud Bug]

I just switched to coco from soil. Handwatering seems to aerate the coco pretty good. Drippers would just keep it moist, which is important, but I have to wonder if handwatering allows for more oxygen to get into more of the medium.

When handwatering from the top, the solution goes down into the medium and fresh air is pulled into the coco. You won't get that kind of action with blumats or drippers.

Except from maybe bottom feeding/ebb & flow which would force old air out and bring in new oxygen?

 

[Danseur]

Ok you are all a bunch of coco nuts

I had quite a long response typed up but think I should keep my feelings to myself on much of this. Coco is quite unique to say the least.

imo coco if used as a straight mix, ie.) only coco, is most efficiently used as a medium in a highly active hydroponic system like ebb and flow.

Yes coco can be treated like a soil, but that is limiting its capabilities as a medium. Where does that leave us? With a big gap in between. What coco is capable of and what it works best as is a wide array of technique and preference.

You can treat the coco how you wish to, but treating it as a soil-less medium in an active hydroponic system will give its best results around the board.

Growing in a straight coco mix using organic teas works, but similar to treating straight coco as a soil it is limiting its potential. However amending the coco with some worm castings, greensand, humic's, and other choice amendments can make quite the organic mix. Trade secrets But then this is not longer just coco, so we will leave it at that.

Which garden will give the best results?
1.)Proper living soil
2.)Proper hydroponic ebb/flow
3.)Proper *any method you think of*

Trick question, what I find most times is that it is not the method that is at fault but the gardener. Expecting a sub-par soil garden to yield the same results as a proper hydroponic garden is pointless. Proper is proper. This goes for any method and technique used.

p.s. handwatering, blumats, drips ect are all types of irrigation the frequency and amount of watering should not change and comparing these are imo waste of time. If bluemat won then I would say the person handwatering got lazy. See the logic?

Bunch of coco nuts I tell ya! I better toke up.

 

[NiteTiger]

Ok you are all a bunch of coco nuts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c-D35DRPbY

 

[eastcoastbuds]

INFO FROM COCO EXPERIENCE!
PH 5.6-5.8
Hydroponic nutrients.
NEVER let it dry out, coco is just like hydroton or rockwoll. when it dries out the plant becomes INmoible (excuse my spellling) its like a car without gas and oil. youll also get a toxic salt build up if you continue to let it get dry. so youll probally be watering every other day if not every day depending on the humidity.

your humidity sould be between 50-60%

get a good feel for the pots water weight or even when you see the tops of the coco get a little crumby and dry on top you need water!

GOODLUCK TO YA!!

 

[Hemphrey Bogart]

Except from maybe bottom feeding/ebb & flow which would force old air out and bring in new oxygen?

I'm thinking along the lines of flooding the medium from the top down, not from the bottom up. The top of the medium in your examples doesn't get flooded and drained, only the lower portion of the container does. In an ebb and flo, the top of the medium is feed by the wicking, sponge-like properties of coco, which is fine and I'm not arguing against it at all.

Handwatering gives the plant's roots a huge boost in oxygen all at once from the top all the way down to the bottom. Not to mention all those roots that are growing through the top of my coco get a nice dosing every time I feed. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that the most efficient way of delivering oxygen and nutrients is from the top down with a flood of water started at the surface of the medium, not at the bottom. Again, I'm not saying it works better. I'm just theorizing here and have no data to back up my theory.

 

[SlowCalaToker]

I'm thinking along the lines of flooding the medium from the top down, not from the bottom up. The top of the medium in your examples doesn't get flooded and drained, only the lower portion of the container does. In an ebb and flo, the top of the medium is feed by the wicking, sponge-like properties of coco, which is fine and I'm not arguing against it at all.

Handwatering gives the plant's roots a huge boost in oxygen all at once from the top all the way down to the bottom. Not to mention all those roots that are growing through the top of my coco get a nice dosing every time I feed. I'm no expert, but it seems to be the most efficient way of delivering oxygen and nutrients is from the top down with a flood of water started at the surface of the medium, not at the bottom. Again, I'm not saying it works better. I'm just theorizing here.

Plus, if you top-dress the coco with hydroton you will spread the nutes over the top of the media better and increase aeration.

+k

 

[Guywithoutajeep]

But hasn't hand watering already been proven to provide unequal results compared to drips?

Providing enough oxygen in coco has never been an issue so to say hand water provides more aeration may be irrelevant considering that the medium is geared for high aeration to begin with. I think that's the point of coco. Once you get it perfectly moist it provides more oxygen to the roots than soil is capable of.

In the end I'm looking at 100% balance throughout my entire grow, on a daily basis and in the long term. Prove to me that your hand water can keep your coco perfectly moist and prove that the "supposed" increased oxygen from handwater actually benefits the root system. There is a threshold to where the amount of oxygen your able to provide to the roots won't improve growth. Have we maybe already reached that point (or maybe come close to) by using coco?

 

[Danseur]

Drippers is just a way to automate handwatering. The amount and frequency of a drip system can be identically matched by a human handwatering. They are one of the same, just one is automated and another is not. Just like a human, the drip system can over or under water a plant. Afterall the human dictates the schedule of the drips and the amount to flow. Blumats I will be the first to say I have no experience with them, but are they not nothing more than a fancy wick system? This can also be over or underwatered with poor human planning. Again these styles imo are just automated hand watering. The fact that the water is entering from the top of the container does not change between any of them, only the color of the hand.

Roots source oxygen from multiple sources, but that topic in another thread has left be a bit sore from contributing. Keeping it short oxygen can be sourced from water during photosynthesis and also from the air within the rootzone. At night the plant uses enzymes called ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase, or RuBisCO near the stomata that that bind not only co2 but also oxygen.

 

[Lord Humungus]

I'm thinking along the lines of flooding the medium from the top down, not from the bottom up. The top of the medium in your examples doesn't get flooded and drained, only the lower portion of the container does. In an ebb and flo, the top of the medium is feed by the wicking, sponge-like properties of coco, which is fine and I'm not arguing against it at all.



Handwatering gives the plant's roots a huge boost in oxygen all at once from the top all the way down to the bottom. Not to mention all those roots that are growing through the top of my coco get a nice dosing every time I feed. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that the most efficient way of delivering oxygen and nutrients is from the top down with a flood of water started at the surface of the medium, not at the bottom. Again, I'm not saying it works better. I'm just theorizing here and have no data to back up my theory.

i dont have the science behind this to back it up... only experience. same nutes strenths same plants same lights same tables blah blah blah.... both ebb n flow and hand fed from the top.... equally killer results both ways.
the only difference was extra daily labor + less nutes for hand watering vs. more nutes and less labor (save for rez change day) for ebb n flow. i did have to get adjusted to handfeeding to understand how much to give each plant to achieve the desired runoff, btu the results are the results - it really doesnt fucking matter.

as long as the plants get what they need they will be happy. its pretty simple. definately NOT aeroponics hahaha

 

[Guywithoutajeep]

lol cool man

Blumats are drips with a twist. They use a ceramic cone sensor thing to detect moisture in your medium and a certain rate (how open or closed the line is) and amount of water is applied. What separates the Blumats is that they are supposed always know the exact amount water needed to be applied.

If you completely dry out a blumat then the line fully opens and disperses water, the more saturated the medium becomes the more the line closes until enough is fed out and proper saturation is reached.

I think with regular drips its just an on/off thing on a digital timer. That to me can be exactly like hand watering.

Coco wicks great too so don't throw that "is the water being dispersed properly" at me.

 

[NiteTiger]

But hasn't hand watering already been proven to provide unequal results compared to drips?

Not that I've seen.

Prove to me that your hand water can keep your coco perfectly moist...

Prove to me you can get yields with drippers that can't be matched with hand watering That sword cuts both ways

After all, you're the one making the controversial claim here

 

[Hemphrey Bogart]

But hasn't hand watering already been proven to provide unequal results compared to drips?

Providing enough oxygen in coco has never been an issue so to say hand water provides more aeration may be irrelevant considering that the medium is geared for high aeration to begin with. I think that's the point of coco. Once you get it perfectly moist it provides more oxygen to the roots than soil is capable of.

In the end I'm looking at 100% balance throughout my entire grow, on a daily basis and in the long term. Prove to me that your hand water can keep your coco perfectly moist and prove that the "supposed" increased oxygen from handwater actually benefits the root system. There is a threshold to where the amount of oxygen your able to provide to the roots won't improve growth. Have we maybe already reached that point (or maybe come close to) by using coco?

I can't prove anything as I stated in my other post. I'm not here to try to push one or the other, just bouncing ideas off of other people's minds. I've seen enough of krunchbubble's threads that I'm convinced he's got the whole drip system deal dialed in. I just don't need to commit to depending on drippers to feed my plants since I don't have to.

I guess the idea with my grows is to keep automation a small part of the process, but then again, I'm not growing large amount of plants. If that were the case, I'd definitely look into something like drippers or the like. I prefer to grow small and in mixed company (sativa and indicas in the same run from seed) and I've found that some varieties drink/eat faster than others.

Right now, I have a mix of sativa and indica doms going that have different requirements. It's easier for me to monitor how much and what I feed when I handwater.

 

[Guywithoutajeep]

I wanted to mention this last thing before I go to bed.

When comparing drippers and hand water I left out one thing. A dripper allows the grower to use different intervals for watering. I think we all know that hand watering is limited by our own time constraints. Hypothetically speaking, are we capable of delivering water 12 times a day at an exact interval of 5 minutes each time. I know I couldn't do that, I got shit to do besides grow plants. So drippers allow us to be experimental and could create new watering intervals that are superior to what a busy grower could offer.

Also, I can't enter my grow room when the lights are off which cuts me off from feeding for 12 hours. Not good at all. I can't wait for my hand watering days to be over. Time goes by pretty fast for me now so it won't be long.

 

[NiteTiger]

Also, I can't enter my grow room when the lights are off which cuts me off from feeding for 12 hours. Not good at all. I can't wait for my hand watering days to be over. Time goes by pretty fast for me now so it won't be long.

Eh, that tends to be an overstated fear. Using green bulbs or an LED light, will allow you to spend as much time in your grow as you want. Light stress isn't from weak light exposure intermittently, but from a persistent intrusion, a constant leak.

 

[Guywithoutajeep]

prefer to grow small and in mixed company (sativa and indicas in the same run from seed) and I've found that some varieties drink/eat faster than others.

Right now, I have a mix of sativa and indica doms going that have different requirements. It's easier for me to monitor how much and what I feed when I handwater.

Sorry if I'm coming off pushy. Yeah I'm not one for using digital timers to determine when my plants should be watered either, hence the blumat system. As far as feeding amounts, I maintain a smaller grow where I'm only going to do a few strains at a time and I can manage a few small separate reservoirs with different strengths and obviously I can do mixes with that situation. A couple five gallon buckets does the trick for my plans.

 

[Danseur]

When the blumat control themself get back to me, for now it read that you control the blumat. How dry is too dry? Does the blumat use a censor to determine the amount of roots in the pot to gauge the proper saturation level given the pot size and root size?

Coco wicks amazingly, but that doesn't mean that a blumat is not just a fancy wick system and nothing more.

Knowing the plants, their root size, and preferences dictate your watering habits. Automated or not, none are superior to another. What is superior is dialing it in so that you get that 100% no stress. Never overwater, never underwater. 100% active. No lag time. This can be accomplished with handwatering, blumats, or drippers just the same. You are thinking the plants see the color of the hand watering them, they only notice how much and how often. Not if it comes from a human hand or a plastic fitting.

 

[Guywithoutajeep]

Eh, that tends to be an overstated fear. Using green bulbs or an LED light, will allow you to spend as much time in your grow as you want. Light stress isn't from weak light exposure intermittently, but from a persistent intrusion, a constant leak.

I could take a picture of my plants right before the lights go off and right when they go on and you tell me. I get droopage my friend. My sour D's drink like crazy!!!

And dude your walking a tight rope when you start messing with light leaks. I can't guarantee hermie safety, I can only maximize the safety potential.

So I think we should come to a conclusion about drips and hand watering. Here's my take (and I think we'll all agree): it depends on your strain, your time constraints, and your experience in coco watering. While I still maintain the opinion that Blumats hold the most potential, hand watering and drippers based on digital timers are identical to each other (minus the convenience of interval experimentation with digital timers). Otherwise its not possible to say one is superior to the other.

Thanks for your insight and second guesses! Super helpful.